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Bread prices will not change

2 March 2015 19:19 (UTC+04:00)
Bread prices will not change

By Nigar Orujova

There is no reason to inflate prices on bread and flour products in Azerbaijan, said Zulfugar Mammadov, head of the State Grain Fund.

"The volume of grain reserves of the fund has been increased from 500,000 tons to 750,000 tons," he said on March 2, adding “this allows holding the intervention on the domestic grain market and preventing a price increase.”

Currently, the fund provides enterprises with grain at 185.6 manats per ton, which puts the wholesale price of 50-pound bag of flour at 16 manats.

“In turn, this allows to keep the price of bread produced in the country, at a stable level, in other words there is no reason to raise the price of bread," Mammadov said.

The current supply of high quality wheat in the country is almost 500,000 tons. Moreover, negotiations with grain producers from Russia and Kazakhstan are underway to supply wheat to Azerbaijan.

The main objective of the Fund is to provide consumers with grain products in emergencies, to form government grain stocks, fulfill international obligations and, if necessary, to prevent a sharp rise in prices on the domestic grain market.

A sharp devaluation of the manat on February 21 led to an overnight rise of prices in the local market. Since the government has worked to protect customers and control inflation.

Earlier, the State Service for Antimonopoly Policy and Consumer Protection has tightened measures to curb engineered high prices for goods and abuses that may arise in the consumer market due to changes in the exchange rate of the manat.

Bread is believed to be the staff of life in Azerbaijan. The country’s population used to consume more bread, which makes products like grain and bread strategic items for Azerbaijani government.

However, the statistics for the past seven years shows that the Azerbaijani population has started to consume more potatoes, vegetables and fruits, as well as meat and fish, while preferring to eat less bread. Bread consumption decreased by 12 percent in between 2007 and 2013.

The country with a population of over 9.5 million people is meeting its grain demand by 75 percent. Demand has increased proportionally to population growth.

Azerbaijan produced over 2.4 million tons of grain in 2014 and the country is expected to produce 2.5 million tons of grain this year. The record level of 3 million tons of grain production in Azerbaijan was achieved in 2009.

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Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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